


Earned Our Peace

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe-Everyone Lives, Baby Teddy - Freeform, Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Post War, established relationships - Freeform, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lily wonders if James misses it when he doesn't go sometimes- running during the full moon with his friends.  But she can't say she regrets the nights he chooses her arms, and their bed.





	

Poking her head around the corner, Lily leaned against the banister and watched the small boy curled up at the bay window overlooking the back garden. The night was clear, pinpricks of stars blanketing the sky, unblemished by heavy city lights near London. Here, the only glow against the dewy grass came from the full moon.

She startled when James came around the corner, a small, plastic child’s tea mug in his hand with a puppy face faded across the front.

“Where’d you dig out that old thing?”

“Summoned it out of a box we have in the cupboard under the stairs,” he said with a shrug. He was sleep-slow in his movements, and as he moved closer to her, Lily could make out streaks of silver peppering the dark hair at his temples. The glow of the moon cast a faded light across his brown skin, and she reached out, pushing her fingers over a scar that never went away.

“Moony?”

James looked down at it. “Oh. Yeah. When I was sixteen.”

A smile tugged at her lips, and she glanced over again at the two year old perched in the window, staring up at the sky. “D’you think they’ll ever tell him?”

“Course,” James said. He started walking toward the boy, Lily close at his heels. Teddy turned his head, his hair presently curly like his dad’s set tight against his head, but they were stark black—same as James’. He did that a lot when he visited, and James always took the piss saying Teddy would rather be a Potter. “Want some hot chocolate?”

Teddy hummed, and climbed into James’ lap, snuggling against his front as his chubby hands curled round the mug. His eyes barely left the horizon, and Lily sighed at the pair of them. James had always been best at this sort of thing. Her motherly instincts had kicked in eventually, but she’d never been particularly maternal—if one wanted to call it that.

They’d stopped at two—the first barely happening with the raging war, making it out by the skin of their teeth, a host of scars both inside and out.

When Harry was born, she didn’t have much room in her to be anything other than exhausted and terrified. He was nearly two when everything crashed—when Regulus Black appeared half drowned, dragged by a House Elf, clutching a locket.

When Dumbledore sent James and Sirius out, when they’d come back after months of silence, bashed and bloody, with Peter Pettigrew in chains, and things James to this day had never shared with her, she wasn’t sure they’d get past it.

But she was pregnant again, and Ashley was born just as James was putting himself together.

Dealing with Ash was easier. She had time to enjoy the quiet moments, even if James still got most of them. Even if the kids still asked for him first, hugged him first, kissed him first. Even now, years later with her kids at Hogwarts—nearly grown enough that she could see her own grandkids in their future—James was still that man.

The man his godchildren came to, crawling into his lap and twisting their little fingers round his hair and holding tight until their parents came home safely.

Teddy was the product of a lot of things. Of on again and off again. Of unthinking choices of two people pining for those they didn’t think they could have.

Nymphadora was currently on holiday with Fleur, celebrating their one year anniversary. And Sirius was with Remus, in the form of a dog, trying to guide Remus through yet another change that hopefully wouldn’t shatter him to pieces come morning.

“Do you wish you were out there with them?” Lily asked when she noticed Ted’s eyes had drifted shut. She reached out, prying the mug from his still hands. He made a tiny, disgruntled noise, but snuggled back down into James’ arms and settled.

“I go sometimes,” he replied.

He avoided direct questions like that. Maybe out of guilt, she thought, because he’d rather be here with the little ones, or with her, or even on his own these days. Animagus or not, his bones ached sometimes, and he wasn’t cut out for running the way he once had.

Or maybe he did wish he was out there every full moon—Marauders sans one—running and jumping and reliving youthful days where only a hint of darkness sat on the horizon. Days where they were young and they didn’t know yet, not fully, how cruel the world could be.

Well…Remus knew, she supposed. He had always known.

Lily pushed up against his side, winding her arm round his neck. She nosed through his hair, breathing him in. She had always found something soothing by his scent, even when she’d hated him. Even when he’d come home from the war nearly a stranger, a ghost of the man she’d married.

He’d smelled the same, even when she wasn’t sure he’d find his way back to her.

But he had.

She pressed warm lips to his temple. “Will they be here in the morning?”

James shifted Teddy in his arms, then leaned against Lily’s side. “No. I told them to have a few days. Take a rest and let Moony heal up. Teddy will be fine here.”

She stared down at the boy, then reached out, giving a light tug on one of his curls. He looked like his dad in his sleep, when his features weren’t morphing and shifting. He had Remus’ freckles, and wide nose. He had Nym’s dimple in his chin.

“Zoo, d’you think?” she asked.

James’ head turned to her with a startled grin. “Yeah?”

She laughed. “We haven’t been, since Ash’s tenth birthday and she declared zoos were for babies. I think it could be fun.”

“I love Muggle London,” James said happily.

Lily pushed away so he could rise, and they began the careful climb to the top of the stairs. Harry’s room was the safest. It was hard to have the beds empty so long during the year. She’d debated about it for a while, up until she saw the excitement in her son’s eyes when the owl arrived at the morning breakfast table with his name printed neatly across the top in McGonagall’s handwriting.

She wasn’t sure how she’d feel about someone else raising her children. It wasn’t like the muggle schools. No exeat weekends, parents allowed for Quidditch matches on the occasion, and the holidays home twice a year. She found it laughable that a society rooted so deeply in British Paganism would be focused so much on the western religious holidays. She couldn’t remember a time when Harry and Ash were home for Holi.

Her heart ached to see them again, small, dressed in white to get the most color, running past Monty who took no greater joy than showering them with rainbows of powder until they were barely recognizable.

But they were happy.

Like Teddy would be. And after all, this was Harry’s last year, wasn’t it? He’d sit his NEWTs, then he’d come home and well…he wasn’t sure what he wanted, and Lily and James were doing their best not to pressure him in any one direction.

“You’ve got that look on your face,” James said after he turned away from the transfigured cot. His hand went out, touching Lily’s broad waist, his fingers digging in just slightly the way he’d always done when he wanted her close.

She didn’t keep him at arm’s length for long.

And this. This never got old. The way his lips sought hers, the way his hands tugged at her plait, letting it fall around her shoulders in delicate waves. He walked her backward, across the hall to their own bedroom, small and cozy. The bed was unmade, tucked under the window for the best view during spring time when the chill was kept out by more than just a warming charm.

She let herself be pushed down. Nothing more would happen than this. Soft kisses along her neck, her collarbone. A quiet moan, a push of hips which was James reminding her that after all these years, after all the war, and their children, and their lives occasionally spiraling out of control, he still wanted her.

She loved these moments best of all.

Her mouth opened under his, easy and soft. His tongue met hers in a soft brush, and he pulled the duvet up around their waists as he kept her close. So close she could feel the beat of his heart against her shoulder.

“Are you sad?”

She shook her head. “Just thinking.”

“About Remus?”

She laughed. “No. That’s your job, darling.” She felt his chuckle against her more than she heard it. “Harry’ll be back this summer. Then he’ll probably want to flat with Ron. In London or…” She hesitated. “Maybe he’ll be interested in Muggle Uni.”

James sighed into her hair. “He might be. He was asking me about it. Told him I was the wrong person.”

“I might not have been once,” she confessed, a little low, one of her few regrets—giving up her heritage so easy for magic. She hadn’t cut herself off from the world completely, but enough that she wouldn’t be any help to Harry if he asked. “I’m sure we can find him someone.”

“I’m sure Sirius knows a bloke who knows a bloke…”

“Who our son should definitely not speak to,” Lily admonished.

James huffed into the side of her neck, biting down lightly. “He’s always been wonderful with them. He’d never steer Harry wrong.”

Lily snorted. “You were the one who lost your bloody mind when you found out he took Harry up on the bike.”

“He was three! Of course I did. I’d like to see his face if I put Teds on my broom and took him for a joyride.”

“Children change you,” Lily said, then turned and cupped James’ cheek. “Well, not you. You’ve always been a softie. Probably why you liked Remus best of anyone.”

“Nah, he was just best at snogging.”

She giggled. “Harry still thinks you’re joking when you and Remus bring it up. He’d never believe you. Now maybe if it was Sirius…”

“He was always too besotted with Moony,” James lamented. “Still resents me for getting there first.”

Lily’s grin widened. “I’m sure he does. I’m sure they lie awake at night and Sirius demands Remus spend at least fifteen minutes before bed telling him how much prettier he is than you are.”

“Oh Lils,” James said, and kissed her. “He’d never ask Moony to _lie_.”

“After all these years and you’re still such an arrogant toe-rag.”

“Those should have been our wedding vows,” he said.

“So you’ve said. For eighteen years now.” She yawned, and her eyes ached with that vague, sort of sleepy itch. He stroked the back of one knuckle down her cheek, and she settled against him. “We had good ones.”

“Quick, but yes. Good as well.” He brushed his lips against hers. “I’ll make breakfast in the morning.”

“Pancakes,” she muttered. “With cardamom.”

“Of course.”

Even nearly asleep, she could hear the smile in his voice, and she was soothed by it. Comforted. Knowing that whatever the world had thrown at them, they’d weathered it. And they’d earned this peace.


End file.
